Bushman Symposium live blog

Missed Givens. Mauss talking on reversal of retrenchment. Thinks motivation for reversal (see Angel and Beehive) is increased political visibility.

Whittaker on British infusion 19th cent. Infused leadership. Reverse infusion (lots of returning missionaries). Wants to look Brits and ideologies. (iPad sorry) critiques of godbeites. Did John Taylors Brit background make veer away from BY united order?

Music art arch. All Brit strains. Welch music. Boy scouts.
Major studies of Jesus (Talmage) influenced by outdated Victorian studies which insulated from higher crit. Brit influence may have slowed down the internationalism of church.

Q&a Mauss.. Is this latest development a continuation of dialectic of Angel? Mauss: oscillating phenom.
Whittaker. Can’t hear.
Mauss. Underlying reasons for excoms in 90s? Great variety of reasons too much anger in victims”. Mauss had 4 diff encounters with leaders no probes. Sense that church leaders felt some response was nec. Following Arrington era.

I hate spelling correct.

Mauss question on bom musical notes taxi ads remarkable turn.

Quest on Hoffman -catalyst of church recoil from intellectuals. Mauss says it was an increment for retrenchment.

How did internationalization effect dealing with tensions.

How much respectability has the church received? Not much problem is, we are too new. Keep up present tack. Camps attack Mormons – evangelicals- secularists. Second one is new and diff. From what other movements faced in former times.

Heading down to McLachlan on Mormonism and Romanticism.
Crappy connection here in basement so updates slow.

McLachlan. Teaches Phil of religion. Morm structural similarities to romantics. Hegel etc – Bushman on the roads 9 points. Cool. Get you in Trouble in North Carolina. Richards “creed”

Two restorations. Rational-camp bells. JS is romantic. BoM theology diff from king follett? Most discussers of bom wrong. Verma .. He brings the words you bring the meaning. Compare to Lehi’s Phil. Very interesting. Fall much better than innocence. Compare to wizard of oz Kansas monochrome. Kant reworks Verma. Sublime vs order.
Schelling – unity and individuality. Evolves to human freedom. God becomes community. Consciousness requires other. Secret of love. He’ll is the place where you blame everyone else for your own problems.

Ben Huff. Enlightenment. Reaction to abuses of religion. Secular millennium. Also enlightenment a forerunner to Mormonism. Counterpoint to reformers as forerunners. Enlightenment critique of authority. Luther we are like horses that either ridden by god or the devil. Enlightenment offered critique of moral authoritarianism of reformers. Kant, Mill law is above God?

(aside by me… Luther sounds sort of like 2Ne9?)

Some questions about Bushman’s 9 points. Think responder missed point even though Claudia Bushman was there.

Staying for Ben Park. Then I’ve got to leave by order of the Queen.

Ben: On Dependence of JS on Thomas Dick (ala Brodie).

Young scholars owe Bushman.

Rigid linear development of thought. Historians have used simplistic categories. Hide suble divergences. Notions of intellectual dependence important. Focus on this. Dick is an example. Hope to posit better framework. Kirtland publishing Dick. Dick provides some rational defense for theosis and other stuff. Language used in Dick. Brooke uses Dick, Ramsey, etc. To show Rigdon as vanguard for spirits, etc. Ignore or embrace Dick? All or nothing is wrong way to think. Interpreting and contextualizing requires sublety. Most historians now agree that Mormonism is best thought of as sitting in the cultural sea. But we must avoid a framework where JS is central and cultural trends only important where they appear to contact JS.

More important is idea of how both Dick and JS were responding to say enlightenment erosion of faith,say.

Ben preaches the word on how Mormon Studies must move ahead. Be equally hesitant about all or nothing thing. Mormon theology must understand the intellectual air of the era first. Then examine the parallels and divergences. Missing a lot. He’s reading too fast.

Steve Fleming on Neoplatonism and early Mormonism. But I can’t stay.

Ha! Charles Randall quotes from JS but not really 🙂 See my recent post at BCC on mythic JS. Hehe.

Mauss’ comment on “September 6” probably didn’t come through very clearly, but he was saying that his communications seem to suggest that they were almost asking for it. I was sure he would have been talked to given the times. 4 times? He said none of the interviews were any sort of problem. Church highly sensitive at the time, hierarchy sort of saving up angst since 1980 or so. Would have dissipated (he says) if confrontation wasn’t sought or something like that.

Whittaker’s comment on Talmage and Jesus the Christ was pretty interesting. He offered several things for future exploration. I wish I had a recording or transcript. He talked about Brit influence with PPP and issues. I would like to hear that again. Very interesting stuff. The whole angle on the Brit thing and interaction driving theology with Penrose and a whole list of other folk. Sort of like what I’m arguing in an appendix to King Follett.

Speaking of King Follett, I think McLachlan got Bushman sort of mixed up on the spirits thing. Also, he dissed Roberts! Grrrrrr. Haha.

There was a funny moment with McLachlan where he asked if anyone could name one of the current 7 presidents of 70. He put it something like, can you name one since J. Golden Kimball? Of course there were some up to 1970s that were well-known like Tuttle, McConkie, Dunn, etc. but of course they have kind of disappeared from view since the quorum was reorged. This was interesting to me since in preparation for listening to Mauss (which I only caught the end of) I was going through Angel and Beehive and a remark he makes there about professions and GAs in the 20th century made me go through all the current GAs and GOs to check on their backgrounds. It was pretty interesting and I think I will do a post on it once I get a moment to tabulate the data. Probably at BCC sometime.

Bill, sorry I missed you. Fell into a ditch so had to drive back to SLC to change clothes (long story).
Robin is here. It’s a great time. Rosalynde Frandsen Welch gave a great talk on Milton and JSJ with great poise and intelligence. Phil is giving a great talk on JSJ theology.